Desperation and Forgotten Dreams
by a mountain of gideon's scones
Summary: "You're not alone, Myrnin, you're never alone. I'm here for you, and for the foreseeable future, I will always be here for you. " Claire tries to persuade Myrnin that all his dreams aren't lost and that he's not alone. For Bad-Wolf-Reborn /ClaireMyrnin


This isn't really set in any book; it contains references to a few events, but it's more AU. And Claire and Shane are already over, FYI (I have no desire to keep writing the break-up in stories, it's really rather irritating).

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As Claire walks down into the laboratory, the first thing she can smell is the stench of alcohol and everything that comes with it: desperation and forgotten dreams. Or, at least that's what her mind fills in the blanks of the situation; for Myrnin to be drinking this heavily, it indicates to her that he's broken about something. He's tried to do something and it hasn't worked—she can guess what it is, though she'd be worried to say anything incase it's something completely different—and so he's trying to drown his sorrows, to forget.

She just supposes that he's managed to forget that drinking doesn't help him forget; it just makes him worse.

It breaks her heart to see him like this because no matter what the confusing dynamic of their relationship is—she can't define it in her own mind, let alone explain it to anyone else—for him to hurt is for her to hurt; it's been like that for as long as she can remember. His words to her in her bedroom—_"don't cry for me, I'm nothing to cry over,"_—will forever haunt her, and they're words which are right at the forefront of her mind at the minute.

"Myrnin?" she says hesitantly as she descends the final step into the room, her eyes roaming the room to try and find the man. She hopes he isn't in a homicidal mood; she doesn't have the patience for that today, not when she's trying to be his (unpaid) therapist. "Are you here?"

He doesn't reply per se; she deduces his presence from the whimpering noise from the far corner of the main section of the laboratory, beginning to move over there as she realises this. Claire pauses in the kitchenette for a short period of time, gathering together some water and bits of food—not to mention a bottle she presumes contains some blood, just incase Myrnin tries to go for her veins—because when Myrnin's in this sort of mood, it usually takes a while to get him back to normal. Even if he doesn't want the food, she'll take it.

Claire spots Myrnin sitting on the floor in front of one of his bookcases, his head narrowly avoiding knocking a pile of very rare books onto the floor…and into one of the puddles of alcohol which is next to him. There's an empty bottle on its side which Claire presumes to be the source of the leak—the other seven bottles of what seems to be originally brandy, however, has most likely been downed by the man sitting on the floor, weeping to himself.

"What's wrong?" she asks gently as she kicks some of the bottles out of the way and sits down about a metre away from Myrnin, on the other side to the leakage. She doesn't want to sit in alcohol, after all. "Myrnin, you need to tell me. I'm your friend, remember?"

He snorts and turns his head away from her, something which surprises Claire. She can't think of anything that she's done to make him hate her—or act as though he does. "You don't really care about me, I know you don't. You don't want to be here, you'd rather be learning at that university you want to go to, or be with that boy. Little old eccentric Myrnin, he isn't who you want to spend your time with." He sounds bitter to Claire's ears, but also hurt and resigned, as though he's accepted that he's never going to be her first choice of social partner.

He also has presumed something that isn't strictly true.

Rather than getting angry and storming out to be with said-boy (no longer an option after last month's scenario), Claire instead decides to try and probe further. She wants this man to be happy, and that's something he very rarely is, it seems.

"I'm here because I want to be," she tells him firmly, lifting the bottle from his hands as she speaks. He lets her, which is more than she was expecting. "Now, Myrnin, tell me. Why are you upset?"

She doesn't expect him to tell her—and he doesn't disappoint.

Standing up suddenly, Myrnin flashes across the laboratory, faster than Claire can see. His path is impossible for her eyes to follow, so she focuses on the path of blazing destruction he leaves in his wake, machines and test tubes flying everywhere, bottles of chemicals falling and their contents spilling out over the floor, tables turned on their tops. Everything's replaceable to Myrnin in this place; nothing is necessary to his survival. He doesn't need anything, and that shows in his actions as he blazes through the room, leaving nothing but wanton destruction in his path.

"How would _you_ understand, little girl?" He's back in front of her once more, a wicked smile on his face—but it's not just manic Myrnin. There's pain in there, too, and a need to be comforted. He just doesn't want her to see that—but she does. "Why would you want to? Surely I'm just a mad monster to you, someone who prevents you living your life. The reasons for my mood are nothing to do with you!" he's ablaze once more, a fierce passion burning which Claire usually only sees when he's focused on his work, and it startles her; she never knew that he would be like this with her, not since he promised to never hurt her, to always protect her.

He's dark and evil, but there's also the light within him, the need to be comforted and to have someone hold him—the reason the light never wins out is because people choose only to see the dark. Not her, though; she won't let him use this as an excuse for his insanity any longer.

"Actually," Claire begins coolly, standing up to face Myrnin as she does so. He's over a foot taller than her, making her feel like a child, but she draws herself up to her full height and refuses to allow herself to feel intimidated. "You're the one who's taught me more about life than anyone else. Not even my friends have taught me as much as you. And I'm not just talking about science, though you've taught me a lot about that, you've taught me about loyalty and friendship and the fact that you can fight to overcome something you didn't want—and that it isn't easy. And that when you fail, you fail—but you can overcome it; you regret it every minute, of every day, but you can move on." She stops talking to look into his eyes and see if she's made any difference to his mood.

It doesn't look as though she has.

It looks as though he's trying to fight her, as though he doesn't want to listen to here and believe what she's saying; he wants to remain miserable and wallow in self-pity. If that's the case, Claire thinks, he can do that; she's done almost everything she can to make him feel better. Short of staking him and making him listen to her warble on and on about how she needs him in her life—and she may end up revealing things he doesn't need to know, or want to hear—if he won't listen to her now, he never will.

The smell of alcohol is stronger now, for some reason, and it reminds Claire that no matter how intoxicated he appears to be, it's a lie. Vampires very rarely become drunk, and with his age and mentality, Claire very much doubts that Myrnin's managed to forget. He'd have to carry on drinking to retain his blissful unawareness, and it doesn't look as though he's managed to do that.

"You don't need to forget," she murmurs quietly, indicating the alcohol on the floor. "What do you need to forget, Myrnin? What have you done that's so terrible you want to lose yourself in a world of bitterness and tears?"

Myrnin shakes his head, tears suddenly appearing in his eyes. "I...many things have elapsed in the past few days since you last visited, Claire. Many, many things, things which affect me in all aspects of my life."

Growing irritated now—a new record for dealing with Myrnin in this mood, Claire thinks—she tosses her head and rolls her eyes. "Myrnin, cut the dramatics; you're not auditioning for some play that Amelie's putting on. _What_ has happened to make you be like this all of a sudden?"

He doesn't make any moves to wipe his tears from his cheeks so Claire reaches up, slowly to make sure that he won't hurt her or be shocked at the contact, and wipes them away with her finger. His skin's cooler than hers, but the tears are real, like hers. It's just another piece of evidence to prove that he's still retained his humanity; he can cry, just like her.

She doesn't remove her hand from his face immediately, and Myrnin's face shifts slightly as his lips form a sad smile. "I destroyed my work on the disease which resides inside my head, accidentally of course. I can never remove the monster's influence over me, Claire, and that's all I want. I want to be normal. And then, of course, there is Amelie and her inability to listen to me about Oliver, though that merely drove me to drink the second half of the alcohol—it was my failures as a scientist which started the process of self-pity." He smiles again, slightly wider though by no means with less sorrow, and shakes his head, the movement causing his face to move even closer against Claire's hand. "There you have it, Claire; you are being tutored by a failure. You may leave."

Claire shakes her own head this time, before noticing that her vision is clouded. She's crying, too. Her hand moves to wipe away the tears but Myrnin beats her to it, his hand resting gently on her cheek, mirroring hers on his. "You made a mistake; that's what scientists _do_!" she urges him to listen to her, tries to force every ounce of her belief in him through her eyes into him—and she hopes it works. She doesn't know why it's so important to her to make him understand his brilliance; perhaps it's so that he won't notice the real reason she's helping him so much.

(She loves him and she needs him in her life, but she doesn't want to tell him this because if she does, he'll be gone from her forever—and that's something she can't take. She needs him just as much as she needs the science and the knowledge. It's for purely selfish reasons she won't tell him how she feels.)

"I am perfectly sure that if a scientist discovered a cure for cancer and then _lost_ it, they would feel much the same as I do," Myrnin counters, though he sounds to Claire as though he's weakening in his resolve to bitterly oppose her viewpoint.

"And they would pick themselves up and start again in the morning, trying to recreate it," Claire argues back through gritted teeth, willing with all her heart to make him accept that she is right. "And once you have cleaned up—because I am not sorting those chemicals out—that's exactly what we'll do. You're not alone, Myrnin, you're never alone. I'm here for you, and for the foreseeable future, I will always be here for you. Ignore Amelie; she's doing her own thing, just as you ought to. It's your life, after all."

Rather than just holding her cheek, Myrnin's fingers are caressing Claire's skin now, and it's making it harder and harder for her to wholly concentrate upon the words that she's saying and what he's saying to her.

She has to ask him to repeat what he says, and he does so, a slight laugh escaping his lips. "Thank you, cariad, you have made me see the light. Thank you."

He reeks of alcohol, so strong that it makes her want to be sick, but still Claire reaches in and presses her lips against his softly. Hopefully he won't remember it, but if he does, it'll leave the door open for him to interpret it as either a friendly kiss or as one which could mean something else; he's the genius, after all. But the kiss tastes of more than just alcohol and tears; it tastes of failure and success, of the strange smell that is Myrnin and Myrnin alone, and ignites something inside Claire that she hasn't felt in such a long time.

It also makes her cry again, something she never expected to happen.

Slowly, Claire breaks away from Myrnin, taking a step backwards as she does so. The air which builds a wall between them brings freshness, rather than the concentrated scent of now-stale alcohol, and she's thankful for this space. "I need to go and get some air freshener, and you need to find a way to replace all the air in the laboratory before I get back," Claire tells Myrnin gently, a smile on her lips as she does so. "Are you going to be alright if I go?" she doesn't want to leave, not really, not if it makes him lose himself again. She's hoping that he's found where he's going once more, not just because of the kiss, and if she leaves, he could regress backwards into the abyss of no hope or belief. That's not where he belongs.

He smiles back, this time a real smile, not just an approximation of one, and Myrnin leans forwards to press a gentle, tender kiss on Claire's forehead. "I'm quite certain, cariad. Take your time. The light will still be here when you return. I won't let it leave now you've persuaded me it's quite important."

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